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E-vangie Tales #87: Slices of Strife

“Why don’t you just get outta here?” said a snotty teen at Starbucks last week when I asked her the million-dollar question. How rude! Poor girl. What kind of parents didn’t raise her. At another Starbucks next to Redondo Beach high school, two teen girls were hugging and kissing on each other’s lips in a blatant display of ungodly affection, cussing a purple streak, and blaspheming God—then said that they were Christians because they had “asked Jesus into their hearts.”

Why are we shocked when the world acts like the world? The exciting thing about mixing it up with pagans on a daily basis is that you get to witness first-hand what life is like without Christ.

At the same Starbucks by Redondo High, another girl said that the other high-schoolers thought I came there to “get them to go to my church and get their money.” I explained that my purpose was to warn them of Hell. I challenged her logic that I would want teenagers’ money—they don’t have any! Then I offered to buy her and a friend anything they wanted. “Thank-you! Thank-you!” she replied gratefully. She and her friend nodded a cheerful good-bye as they sipped their Frappaccinos.

Churches have become monasteries without walls.

We hang out with Christians for Wednesday night Bible studies. We go to Christian potlucks. Movies with the redeemed. Bowling with the saved. Fellowship. Fellowship. Sundays with Christians. Christian men’s groups. Christian women’s groups. Everything and everybody Christian.

While the world—not so quietly—goes to Hell.

A twenty-something with a little rubber band in his beard rode his (probably) stolen bike on the Manhattan Beach Pier. I gave him a Gospel tract and started to talk with him about eternal things before he interrupted, “Are you a Republican? Did you vote for Bush?”

I told him that I would answer his questions after I finished asking him a few questions about Heaven and Hell. He admitted that on Judgment Day he would be found guilty and end up in Hell. Afterward, I answered his two questions, “Yes and yes.” Immediately, he turned his bike around and rode away in disgust.

What every Christian needs is a good dose of reality. We need to hear the profane language of the lost, the carnal conversations and comments of those destined for damnation. See the hopelessness! Feel the pain! Look into their eyes! Keith Green sang:

Do you see, do you see
All the people sinking down
Don’t you care, don’t you care
Are you gonna let them drown
How can you be so numb
Not to care if they come
You close your eyes
And pretend the job’s done.

Same Starbucks by the high school. I saw a punker sitting alone. “How are you doing?” I asked. “Get the *!%#!@! outta here,” he sneered. “I don’t want to hear any of your *!%#!@!.”

I answered “Okay,” and walked away. When he got up to leave I looked up and met his eyes. “See ya later,” I said. Ever so slightly I detected the faintest smile as he nodded his head in a reluctant goodbye.

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Most of my friends and coworkers are “pagans”, so i mix it up with them on a daily basis. One of the sins they commit time after time, is blaspheming God’s name. Man, every single time i hear them curse like that my heart breaks. It hurts to hear that, and i always gently correct them after they do it.
Is my correction in vain? I always thought so, untill some started apolgisying right after they said it, and before i corrected them. They know its wrong and they know where i stand on it. Thats important to me.